I lost interest a few years ago – it was too laggy and difficult to be precise with a stylus. I traded up to an iPad Pro last year et VOILA – with the speedy new tablet and the fine-tipped Apple Pencil I’m loving iPad portrait painting again!

Those of you following my Facebook page couldn’t help but notice that I HAVE A NEW STUDIO. This is the (tidy) studio just after I received my custom-made pinboard from Designer Pinboards.

My Studio

I’ve been churning out some small oil studies of my fellow JKPP artists to get back into a painting routine. I have started each picture with a sketch in burnt sienna then coloured it in. Essentially. Some progress shots:

Underpainting for Juan

Juan work in progress

Juan finished

Underpainting for Kris & Leon

Work in progress for Kris & Leon

Kris & Leon finished

Unerpainting for Tomas

Work in Progress for Tomas

Giovanni underpainting

Arturo work in progress

Arturo finished

The colour palette I have been using most is permanent rose/quinacrodine violet, naples yellow, yellow ochre, lemon yellow, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and titanium white. Occasionally with a bit of indian red, payne’s grey or pthalo blue thrown in.

I snapped a few shots with my iPhone along the way during my portrait of Kris. Unfortunately, they’re a bit blurry, but you can still follow my progress.

The interesting thing is that by the time I was at about the fourth photo, I was thinking of scrapping the picture and moving on to something else. I just didn’t think I’d be able to get it to work.

By the next photo, it was under control. So the message to all of you quietly and privately dabbling in the arts – and I know there are a lot of you! – is persevere.

Preliminary sketch and one eye!

The paper I am using is PastelMat paper which I order online from Dakota Pastels in America. The postage costs more than the paper – but I love the smoothness of it. I have also recently tried the Art Spectrum Colourfix Suede paper which may be equally good and available in Australia. At over $7.00 a sheet, you wouldn’t want to use it for practice paper!

Two eyes!

Mouth, nose & some skin

All features in now

This is where I was about to give up… then I had another crack at the eyes and smile… et voila, redemption.

Refining the features & expression

I added a bit more depth to the background here by mixing some of the magenta in with the turquoise. This gorgeous turquoise, which I think I am going to marry, is a silky smooth and soft pastel stick from Schminke. I used my birthday Art Scene gift card to buy a small and costly set of Schminkes. I have a full set of Art Spectrums and a set of extra dark pastels by Terry Ludwig which I also buy online from my trusty US pastel shop, Dakota Pastels. Dakota looks like a lolly shop for pastel artists. It’s probably a good thing it’s on the other side of the globe.

So here is where I called it done. It looks a little livelier in reality but I like the way the turquoise and magenta interact.

This was what I thought would happen at my cochlear implant switch on: I would hear, with wonder and excitement, all the sounds that Carol, my audiologist played. I would hear simple environmental sounds, and would leave the session amazed by the sudden loudness around me.

It did happen – a week later at my first re-mapping session!

So I missed out on that powerful “WOW! I can hear!” switch on moment with my family. But I have been privately (and sometimes not-so-privately) marvelling at the ever-increasing number of sounds I can hear with the implant.

There have been a few surprises, the biggest being that buttering bread makes a sound – a very, very subtle sound, but it qualifies.

After my second re-mapping session, I started to hear even more sounds with just my implant: my hand dipping into the washing-up water; the swish of a broom; cars passing on the street; water boiling in a pot. I could even hear my daughter playing violin two rooms away!

Still, I get frustrated when I make mistakes, as I did during my last visit with Carol. To reassure me, she admitted that I had exceeded her expectations: she thought that at this stage, we would be in the children’s room trying to identify sounds using toys. She did not expect that I would be up to words and sentences. Yay, me!

It’s not all roses: because I am hearing a lot more through the implant, and the quality of the hearing is a little muffled and electronic, my comprehension when wearing both my hearing aid and implant is actually reduced. In some ways, it feels like a step backwards. I need to persevere and be patient: it can take many months for the brain to normalise the sound from the implant.

Having said that, some of the simple sounds I started to hear after switch on already seem normal.

What I need is motivation! I have been reading about neuroplasticity and have picked out these two points that I think are relevant to my situation:

Achieving plastic change in the brain requires focussed attention. So just walking around wearing the implant isn’t going to cut it.

It seems that after a stroke, the brain can be forced into using an injured limb by constraining the good one. By taking the good limb out of the picture, the brain is compelled to re-learn how to use the damaged limb.

So… I’m spending as much time as I can at home wearing just the implant, forcing the brain to rely on the bad ear… and I’m still plugging myself into the computer, focussing on my rehabilitation. You should see my poor kids trying to talk to me when I am just wearing the implant! “Uh… about 11, sir.”*

A lot of people ask me how the implant is going, with such a hopeful look – they want me to say that it is fantastic and life-changing. I want to say that too, and maybe I will be able to in a few months. Right now, I feel as though I am studying for the mother of all exams.

So I am standing in the kitchen, listening to the kids’ breakfast cooking, marvelling at how far I have come in two weeks…. And realise that one sound I can’t yet hear is the egg timer. Oops…

I’ve been a bit neglectful of my portraits in the last few weeks as I have been pre-occupied with my new Cochlear Implant. A lot of people have been asking me how it is going, so I am blogging off-topic today…

Background

I have been deaf in my left ear for as long as I can remember. For the most part, this has been no more than an inconvenience: I might miss some witty repartee from a dinner guest sitting to my left and as a child, I was completely rubbish at the pool game Marco Polo.

As I began to lose hearing in my right ear, having one useless ear started to become a problem. I made enquiries about getting a cochlear implant in my deaf ear about four years ago. The advice I received at the time was that, due to the length of time that I had been deaf, the most I would be able to hear with an implant would be environmental sounds. In short, it wouldn’t be worth it.

Instead, I bought a better hearing aid for my “good” ear and soldiered on. By the start of this year, my hearing had deteriorated to a significant degree, and the advice I was receiving had changed.

It seems that some people with long term deafness have now received good outcomes after a year of practice and auditory training.

The earlier concern expressed by professionals that the artificial, electronic hearing provided by the implant would clash with the natural hearing in the other, better ear has also fallen by the wayside: it seems that over time, the brain assimilates the artificial hearing with the natural and perceives all the sounds as “normal”.

Now, I was being told that I had nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain.

I’ve had another go at the oil pastel portrait techniqueDavid White showed me. I thought I would try to use the pastels in a more painterly way as Jacquie has such beautiful, smooth skin. I found I could blend the colours subtly by working them over each other repeatedly. There still is quite a lot of line, but I think less than my previous oil pastel drawings. Or perhaps it just looks less scribbly.

Here is the charcoal sketch:

I covered the sketch with an ultramarine blue ink wash then lathered it with oil pastels. The pastel layer is so think it looks impasto in places.

I spent two hours essentially colouring in. As a child, I never, ever won a colouring competition. I reckon I’d kick it in, now. Wonder if I can get away with entering under my daughter’s name…